


No more playing around

by iriswesttt



Category: The Flash (TV 2014)
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-02-29
Updated: 2016-02-29
Packaged: 2018-05-22 20:56:07
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,102
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6093796
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/iriswesttt/pseuds/iriswesttt
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Bart shows up before Barry and Iris are together to give Barry and Iris a push because they’re taking too long and he’s trying to exist.</p>
            </blockquote>





	No more playing around

Iris was trying what seemed like the millionth dress for Caitlin and Ronnie’s wedding. They were getting married again, properly this time (and hopefully without any singularities in the sky to ruin the day), in the Pink Hall of Central City Plaza, with all the guests they could possibly want, and a best man and bridesmaids and all the pomp Caitlin could convey on only three months of preparation. 

It had taken them a couple of months to get things right this time around, but it seemed like no matter how many meta-humans (against them, or in love with them) in their way, those two belonged together and Iris was focusing very hard on the present to not keep on remembering their first wedding day, and when she actually managed that she was happy for them, except for the fact that finding an acceptable dress was proving to be impossible.

She was on a dark purple one now, with a flower pattern all over it and a full skirt, and it was too cutesy, a definitive no, but she stepped out of the changing room to show it to Barry anyway. Maybe he would have an insight looking at her on it and would make a right suggestion.

“So?”

He studied the dress and she knew he had agreed with her, but he said;

“I like it.”

She rolled her eyes at it. That was his default answer: he liked everything till he was sure of how she felt about it and then with a little nagging he would give her his honest opinion. She didn’t had the time or patient for a little nagging anymore, she was getting hungry and decaffeinated and she needed to find a damn dress, the wedding was only one week away;

“You liked all of the three hundred dresses I’ve tried. I can’t try on dresses anymore, Barry, I can’t look at dresses anymore and I won’t find anything that I feel myself in within my price limit and I’ll have to go wearing something completely inappropriate and Caitlin is gonna hate me cause she’s being very anal about this wedding.” She let out a breath making a puff sound. “I hate shopping.”

Barry gave her a poignant incredulous look and asked;

“You hate shopping?”

“I like clothes, doesn’t mean I like shopping. Right at this very moment I hate shopping.”

His lips twitched up on a soft smile, rubbing the back of his neck and his eyes traveled up her body till finding hers in a piercing darkened green stare, and she felt all of her blood rushing to her face and her heart speeding up in her chest.  

They had had about a hundred of those little moments the last couple months, and every time felt like they were on the verge of something, and all of those times, just like this time, he bashfully looked away before it could fully…  _be_ , staring back at her feet, and he suggested;

“Ok, then go with the green one, it fitted, you won’t need any alterations and I think the colour looked really good on you.”

“I like the colour.” She reasoned.

“Great!” He said, with a relief washing his face, only to be broken by her next sentence;

“But I don’t want a strapless dress. I won’t feel comfortable in it.”

“Then why did you pick a strapless dress to try in the first place?”

“Cause I liked the colour.”

It was his turn to roll his eyes. If she was getting hungry she imagined he must have been starving for a while now, and it wasn’t like helping her pick a dress was his idea of fun in the first place, but Barry had always, always been her default shopping companion, ever since they were kids and her dad would drop them off in some store, leave them there for a while and come back to pay for their choices, and he had always took it stoically. 

(Including shopping for her first bra when they were twelve, cause that shit was already scaring enough without her having to take someone she didn’t completely trusted with her, which turned out to be an activity that had induced a constant flux of blushing from Barry, and from her if she was being completely honest, but they were past it now. Or so it would seem)

But growing up she was a little jealous of her girlfriends who had their moms to go shopping with them, and she found it so very ironic when she started to identify a certain jealousy from them because she had a boy to go shopping with her in an age when boys seemed mostly to be from another species. And it was not that she didn’t appreciate him going with her, it’s just when you grow up on the same house as your best friend, you do everything together, so it all just doesn’t seem like a big deal.

Now she didn’t want anyone else helping her pick this dress, so she was extremely grateful when he took a deep breath and went in problem solving mode, saying;   

“I’ll tell you what, you stay here and try not to have a meltdown and I’ll go see if I can find something that you missed in your rounds.”

“Thank you! Thank you.”

She turned around to see another woman, with a dress with the zipper open on her back, standing by her side, watching Barry leave the changing room area, and she told Iris;

“You are lucky.”

“I’m sorry?”

“Your boyfriend is here, patiently waiting for you to pick a dress and offering to go find you something else you could try on whereas mine has just vanished while I was back there getting dressed and is incapable of waiting around long enough to zip me up.”

“Oh, I’m sorry.”

“Not as sorry as he will be”, she said in a threatening tone that Iris decided to let go since it wasn’t direct at her anyway.

“Okay.” Iris answered to herself, for the woman was already back at the changing room before she could hear it, and that was when Iris noticed a boy, hanging around the red circular sofa in front of her that Barry was sitting minutes ago, and there was something indescribably familiar in him, something she couldn’t quiet put her finger on it. 

He offered her a big smile, a smile of someone who just got caught doing something they should’t be doing and she tried to shake off the feeling that that was Barry’s smile. She couldn’t help but to smile back though. 

He approached her slowly, carefully, and she sensed an energy pulsing within him, like it was taking all the control he could possibly convey to not just jump by her side.

“Hi”, he said in a little voice that matched the carefulness of his steps.

“Hello.” She studied him intently. She was getting a feeling hard to describe looking at him. Before she could dwell too long on it he asked her;

“Is that lady right? Is…  _that guy_  — your boyfriend?”

“Excuse me?”

Why would some strange boy be interested if Barry was her boyfriend or not? He held one of his wrists in front of him, like he was trying to stop himself from moving too much, or talking with his hands, and he asked again;

“I’m just asking, you know, is he your boyfriend yet?”

She closed her eyes and shook her head, like if she did so he would disappeared from her sight, and when he didn’t she asked;

“Is your mom back there?”, pointing to the changing room.

“No. My mom isn’t here.” He rolled his eyes with a certain petulance only teenagers could truly perfect. “I mean, I’m almost fourteen, I don’t need my mommy to go anywhere.”

She laughed at that. That’s something she would probably have said when she was that age.  

“Sure you don’t. Do you want to call her though, to come and pick you up? You can use my cell.”

He fidgeted impatiently and said in a slightly higher tone, in a voice that was still changing, and that reminded her of when Barry was going through that phase, and of the amount of mocking it she had done;

“No! I want to know if that guy is your boyfriend. I mean, I’ve been watching you guys for a while and you act like you do now but —”

That made absolutely no sense, but more importantly he just confessed had been watching them. That unsettled her a little, even if somehow she found herself trusting him, but she cut him off sharply;

“What is that supposed to mean?”

“Right, well, I just mean it seems like you are together and the lady seemed to think so too but you haven’t kiss or held hands all the while I’ve been watching.”

“Kid, you need to tell me your parents phone number right now.”

“I told you they are not here, they can’t pick me up. Are you and gran — are you and Barry together? Are you?”

“No, he’s my friend! What’s with the obsession, kid?”

He let out a frustrated groan and went on monologue mode. He wasn’t even looking at her anymore, just pacing around as he went on;

“Man, you two are slow! You know, if I could just have been born two years earlier then Bianca wouldn’t have told me I’m too young. Too young! Can you believe it? She’s like 14 months older than me. But  _nooo_!  _I have a very specific rule about that, Bart_! Can’t you two hurry up? I know I’m not supposed to mess things up, but just a little, I mean, you’ll end up together anyway.”

She grabbed his arm to make him stand still for a second, cause boy was she right about all the pulsing energy, and that was making her dizzy, when he looked back at her face again she let go of him and asked;

“Kid, what the hell are you talking about?”

But that was when she heard Barry, before she could actually see him, approaching the changing room area and saying;

“Ok, I found some —” somehow, when she turned back from searching for Barry’s voice, the kid was gone. Barry must have noticed something in her face cause he stopped mid-sentence, carrying about five dresses in his arms, to ask;

“What’s wrong?”

“This kid—” she wondered if she was so tired from trying on dresses that she was loosing her mind or gone into a delusional state. She couldn’t really explain it to him though, not without having a coffee first anyway, and definitively not the boyfriend part of it, so she said, shaking her head; “never mind. I just had a very Twilight Zone kind of moment right about now.”

“Oh, yeah?”

She turned her attention to the dresses he had picked;

“Oh, I like this navy blue one. Give me, I’ll try them on, and then I promise you, I’ll just pick one, and after we eat, I’ll watch whatever zombie movie you want to make it up to you.”

He smiled bashful at her and said in a soft voice;

“I’m not one to say no to a zombie movie, but don’t worry, I get a feeling this evening was worse for you than for me.”

She resisted the urge to mess up his hair and kiss his neck, breathing in and smiling at his expression, freeing him from the dresses.  _Ok_ , she thought,  _Iris vs the dresses, round three_.

* * *

Barry was standing on the men’s room of the Pink Hall on Central City Plaza trying to steady his breath. He had spend the whole day on an internal debate of whether or not to do something, anything, about Iris. His feelings for her, not Iris herself, of course. The last couple months he had been feeling like they had all those moments between them but as always he was afraid that he was just imagining that, but today they had driven together, to a wedding (per her suggestion), and it felt like a date, they both had plus one invitations but she had insisted she didn’t want a plus one, she had her dad, Wally and Linda and that was all she needed, besides him, she had said,  _of course._

Iris looked absolutely incredible with her hair up and in her navy blue dress, that he so proudly rejoiced on the fact he was the one who had found it, buried behind a pile of black ones, and it fitted her perfectly, indecently even. It hanged open on her back, seemingly floating around her, making him wonder if it was that…  _improper…_  only for his eyes, blaming himself for the completely filthy thoughts hovering around his head leaving him feeling fifteen again.

All of those thoughts were whipped away momentarily though, when he felt a gush of wind accompanied by an _oh-so-telling_ yellow lightning, and he turned around to see a kid, much like the one Iris described from the dress store, standing behind him. The kid paced around for a second and Barry, who had attributed the kid to Iris’ imagination and lack of caffeine, teasing her about it the whole week, stood there completely inert.

And then the kid started talking;

“Ok, so I tried grandma cause she’s usually the most reasonable one, but I guess it didn’t work, so I talked to you and you told me I should probably come and meet you here, even though I’m not completely sure where here is but I’m gonna try you instead of grandma anyway.”

He was exactly like Iris described him, talking nonsense, and Barry could also see the energy pulsing through him, but unlike her, Barry knew the reason: kid was a speedster. Also unlike her Barry could tell exactly what was so familiar about him: he had Iris’ eyes. The same exact shape, same exact colour, same exact kindness flowing throughout of them as he continued;

“You know, I’m not trying to change anything major, it’s just this is 2016. I mean, it is, right? 2016?”

All Barry could do was give him a puzzled  _yeah_  in response, and he went on with his monologue after the confirmation;

“So, it is time. I mean, seriously, I can’t wait another day to be with Bianca, how do you two manage to be so patient I’ll never know.”

Barry placed himself in front of him and when the boy came to an abrupt stop he asked;

“Kid, what are you yammering about?”

“You and grandma. I mean, I’m thinking if I get to speed up you two a little I’ll be born two years earlier and then Bianca won’t use that stupid,  _you’re a kid, Bart_ , excuse.”

Barry felt all the air leave his lungs.

“You’re my grandchild?”

“By god, he’s got it! Yeah, you knew I was coming, I mean, you’re the one who send me. The second time, not the first time. Oh, that’s right, you haven’t send me yet cause it’s the old you who send me —”  

He babbled very fast, even for Barry to keep up, but the whole situation was beginning to feel slightly amusing to him, so he just let the kid continued;

“I’m still getting the hang of it, it’s true, and I know it’s dangerous and everything, believe me, that really did got through, but you’ve got to understand, if anyone understands it’s you, I mean, you love grandma since you were seven, right? So you have to believe, I  _know_  I love Bianca. I’m tired of mom and dad telling me I don’t understand what love is, you’ve got help me, please?”

“Ok, I’ve got the feeling this Bianca isn’t born yet, so there’s not much I can do.”

“No, that’s the thing, you and grandma have to speed up. No more playing around, you have to get married! Fast! I have to be born! Don’t you get that?”

Barry wasn’t so sure he was keeping up with the thought process of the kid. Even if he did get together with Iris —  _god_ , he was trying not to mull too much over that — there was no guarantee that would change the day the boy was born, and even if it did it probably meant that he wouldn’t be the kid to be born in the first place. Different sperm, different egg equals different kid. Maybe he hadn’t had genetics on school yet. 

But if the kid was telling the truth and future him really had send him here, then maybe he should just take that as a sign, and stop obsessively thinking about it and just do something. About Iris. 

“Ok, all right, you get back home, can you do that? And I’ll go and kiss Iris tonight, is that good enough?”

“No! You have to get married! You have to really be together.”

He laughed at the kid’s impatience, but he should probably make sure he would somehow get home so he said;

“How about that then, I have a ring on my sock drawer,” Barry really did have one. Not that he actually planned on proposing tonight, or anytime too soon, but he had bought it on a vintage jewellery store, in Coast City, that Iris had loved, a couple of years ago, when they took a trip there. She had gushed about the ring, but it was an engagement ring so she hadn’t bought it to herself, saying that felt pointless and a little pathetic, so he had gone back without her and bought it instead. He had rehearsed giving it to her a couple of time, not proposing, just so she could have it. The thing was sitting around on his drawer anyway, doing no one any good, but somehow he just couldn’t bring himself to it; “so as soon as she kisses me back I’ll propose to her, is that good enough for you?”, he finished.

He gave Barry a big smile and Barry saw his mom’s smile in it and that’s when he actually believed on it. On him and Iris together, having kids and a whole life and it was so much more real than that newspaper byline. It was a kid, a real kid, standing in front of him saying they were his grandparents.

The kid took a deep breath in and said;

“All right, that will do.”

And in a flash he was gone, leaving Barry to gather up his courage and finally just do it.

**Author's Note:**

> Originally posted on my tumblr iriswestthings to fill a prompt by boniferhasty


End file.
